Rockin’ Friday – Metallica Shmetallica?

Welcome again to Rockin Friday! Today a discussion on one of the most famous metal bands in history. Above is a picture of their frontman James Hetfield (before he grew his crazy beard O.o)
Anywho, Metallica are one of the best selling metal acts of all time, second only to bands such as Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. They are definitely the best selling and most widely known bands of the later generations of metal, which would include such acts as Slayer, Megadeth, Pantera etc etc.

After their first four albums, which includes what is seen as the best metal album of all time by many: ‘Master of Puppets’, they broke into the mainstream with ‘Metallica’, otherwise known as ‘The Black Album’, fronted by the single ‘Enter Sandman’, which is absolutely brilliant song. Since then, they have changed more and more into a hard rock group, becoming even bigger, but, as some see it, even more mainstream (and, therefore, shit. Depends how you look at it 😀 )

This spiral culminated in the ’03 ‘St. Anger’, which personally I think is a pile of crap (the single that is. Haven’t heard the album.) Basically, I believe they were going for the sound of a band jamming in a garage to try and bring their music back to the basics. While you can definitely feel the raw energy of the band, the downside is that it sounds like band jamming in their garage. I’d much rather listen to the polished music of a properly produced album. If I want raw, I’ll listen to the far rawer and polished sound of a band like Machine Head.

Back to the point, this led to great uproar among the people who’d consider themselves old school fans, as it saw a departure from their old thrash style into completely hard rock/nu metal. Which, for most metalheads, is considered rubbish.

Because of this, their new album is being widely anticipated, and hoped to be, a return to their old style and form. Recently, underground videos of their album in production have surfaced (considering what happened with Napster, I doubt Metallica would be too happy with this 😀 ) Anyway, this means you can judge for yourself. Are Metallica returning to what made them great in the first place?